Product Details

• Actors: Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Joanna Lumley, John Light, Joanna Scanlan
• Directors: Paul Seed
• Writers: Andrew Davies, Angela Lambert
• Producers: Alex Graham, David M. Thompson, Jo Willett, Paul Sarony
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• VHS Release Date: November 16, 1999
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00002RARP
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,896 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The best part of ex-Royal Air Force squadron leader Reggie Cunningham-Jarvis's life was obviously World War II (just ask anyone at his local pub), when he and his comrades won the Battle of Britain from the cockpits of Spitfire fighter planes. After that, Reggie (Albert Finney) married into money and didn't do much else for the next 40 or so years, except turn into his own, blustering idea of a pillar of English resoluteness. Meanwhile, a fellow veteran, Roy Southgate (Tom Courtenay), who saw the war from the ground, spent his productive years quietly as a milkman, devoted husband, and tragically failed father. When the wives of each of these men die on the same day in the same hospital room, an unlikely bond is established, leading to an experiment in shared housing with a spurious yet, for Reggie and Roy, somehow comforting class division between them. This very rewarding British comedy-drama, based on a novel by Angela Lambert, is rich in character, beautifully crafted dialogue, and vital performances from two of the finest actors in the world. Just to gild the lily, Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous) is cast as one of the most sympathetic gold diggers in film history, but the real hook here for movie fans is the reuniting of Finney and Courtenay in roles not terribly dissimilar to those they played in the 1983 hit The Dresser. Not just for Anglophiles, A Rather English Marriage is a touching, vigorous delight. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The classiest TV movie in years., November 16, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (the United Kingdom.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rather English Marriage [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It's easy to see why this movie won several TV British Academy Awards (BAFTAs). The acting is superb from all the actors (even down to the bit players), the music is superb, and the writing and direction are first-rate. The ending is also the best in any movie I have ever seen, and comes round too soon. For me, the story is about the relationship between two heterosexual men following the death of their wives - and how they both come to terms with their bereavement. Tom Courtney's Southgate (which won him the Best Actor BAFTA award) grieves immediately after his wife dies. However, Albert Finney's multi-layered Sgt.Major (also nominated for the Best Actor BAFTA) takes longer to come to terms with his life and loss. If you want to see the Best of British, this movie is one of those surprising little gems that only come around so often.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little gem of a film, July 18, 2001

By 

MegaMegaWhiteThing! (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Rather English Marriage [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A story of two RAF World War II veterans who lost their wives in the same hospital on the same day, the film hatches into a work of reminiscence, mourning, moving on, deceit, and edges into a seemingly teasing plot of "what goes around comes around." Womanizing Squadron Leader Reggie invites the prudish and submissive Southgate to take over domestic duties and become a companion at the encouragement of a very sweet social worker. Whether dealing with the golddigging Joanna Lumley (remember Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous?) or coming to terms with a son's misery in prison, this film, while having low points, ends in a sweet, cheerful, and innocent manner. I definitely recommend it, and to think, I just found it by accident on a library shelf.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another brilliant Andrew Davies adaptation, February 16, 2009

By 

meg (santa monica, california) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Rather English Marriage (DVD)

Shown on Masterpiece Theatre (during the Russell Baker years), this reunites two spectacularly fine actors of British cinema's "angry young man" era. The virile Albert Finney of Saturday Night & Sunday Morning, and the subtle Tom Courtenay of Billy Liar or The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, may come to mind again as you watch them in this twilight story of two widowers learning to live without their wives of forty years.

Finney plays something of a lion in winter, a self-approving type who still expects people to address him as Squadron Leader. Courtenay plays a gentler sort, whose cherished memories of the war years are related rather to the love affair with his wife than glory past. The characters here may remind you also of roles the actors played in their middle years in The Dresser -- Finney's vainglorious Shakespearean attended by Courtenay as his backstage dresser. The script and the acting in this humorous, human drama actually teach us things -- about love and friendship, about regret and grief, about old age, about companionship and dignity, about the poignant sweetness of an old Glenn Miller song. Beautiful.